Monday, 29 March 2010

This black and white picture book is adapted from the Indian epic The Ramayana. The illustrations were inspired by the pioneer animator Lotte Reiniger. I watched her beautiful black and white shadow puppet films as a student.

Friday, 26 March 2010

The Little Mohee is an American ballad and was my first published picture book. I was 22 years old and had just graduated from Hornsey College of Art. The folk song is found all over the USA, but I was inspired by the story of Pocahontas,so I set the illustrations around that period of American history. It was published by Macmillan.

Tuesday, 23 March 2010

This folk tale comes from the Creek of the South Eastern States of the USA. The Native Americans invented the game of Lacrosse, and it was played by many different tribes all over North America. The inspiration for my illustrations, however, was watching my sons playing park football as young children. This book was published by 'Happy Cat Books'.

Friday, 19 March 2010

This nonsense story is one of the many Law Tales told in Burma. These tales always have a judgement at the end of them delivered by the wonderfully named ' Princess-Learned-in Law.' The book is out of print but Amazon have a few copies still.

The legends of Monkey and his companions Pigsy and Tripitaka were first collected and written down in sixteenth century China. This tale of the terrible Water Dragon is just one of the many wonderful stories in that collection.

Tuesday, 9 March 2010

The story of the brave fisher, (an animal similar to an ermine,) who gave his life so that his friend the wolf's son might live, is told by the Algonquin of the north east USA. The fisher's body was turned into the stars that we know as the plough.